Homecoming (11 page)

She is lifting her present from its wrapping, holding it in the air between them.

‘A scarf!’ she says, bewildered, and he can see her trying to fashion her face into an expression which both hides her disappointment and also appears grateful. ‘Ooh, it looks warm,’ and she tries to sort of snuggle into it with vigour. The label is dangling down and she turns it. ‘Angora, lovely. And . . . reduced.’ He grabs it and pulls the tag roughly from the scarf but not before she says sadly, ‘You got a bargain there.’

Then she forcibly brightens. ‘Thank you darling.’ And she kisses him. ‘I shall wear it all day.’

Bartholomew has slept for the bulk of the train journey and now looks out at snowy countryside: black-silhouetted trees, their branches blown permanently one way – a row of melancholy dancers behind a veil of falling flakes. You’d normally see the slow crawl of ploughs across these fields, like bottom feeders tickling along the ocean floor. The snow has stopped them in their tracks. The soil will be hard as steel and Bartholomew knows the work on the farm will have slackened its pace with the short winter days. Lots of feeding up on the fell. He knows this without having to summon it. Nothing pretty about snow on a farm, much as it might look like a Christmas card. Winter is a battle.

He looks at the time on his shiny new wristwatch and tries to push away thoughts of Ruby. Nothing sits right inside him – neither his generous impulses, nor his withholding ones. And the more magnanimous she is about it – she’d given him an affectionate goodbye, wearing her scarf, with its yellow fur frothing about her mouth – the more discomfort he feels. Perhaps it’s just not right, he thinks now: her and me. He shifts his body to try to find a position in his train seat which doesn’t ache or crush his knees. Maybe when it is right, I won’t feel like this. And he begins to settle into this position, feeling its comfort, the way it holds him: this possibility that the problem lies with her, well, with their ‘fit’ and not at his door at all. He just needs to wait for the right one, the perfect fit, and then his inabilities, so visible to them both, will evaporate like an early summer mist burnt off by the sun.

The train slows under the magnificent steel and glass arches of the station. He stands, half bent, in the tiny gap between his seat and the table, and reaches up to the luggage rack for his bag and the unwieldy bulk of his coat, which tumbles onto him as he tugs it.

Joe watches the snow falling on the village green. Big floating flakes, which meander down like feathers from an eiderdown. He looks at his watch. Bartholomew will be driving now through the snow. He’d insisted on hiring a car on the station platform, said they had a cut-price offer on, even though Joe had offered to pick him up in the Land Rover. ‘Don’t be daft, dad. Mad to come all that way when snow’s so thick.’ And Joe had felt grateful, that his son seemed to have some inkling of his exhaustion. He’ll be able to tell Bartholomew, or let him know, that he’s getting old – that all hands should be on deck under his tutelage. And Bartholomew will step up. He’ll come to the rescue. Joe realises that his fantasy, if he’s honest, is to have Bartholomew return to the farm. Devote his life, with Max, to its survival. Hartle men together, like it used to be.

He shakes his head. No, he must be careful, he tells himself. Make sure it doesn’t go like last Christmas. He has to keep it buttoned. Ann has told him. No, he won’t let that happen again.

‘Your little project.’ How he regretted saying it that way. He saw how wounded Bartholomew had looked but for some reason, he’d pressed on. ‘You could do so much more, son. There’s nothing wrong wi’ it – nothing wrong in ladies tending pansies in hanging baskets. But it’s not a living for a man.’

Bartholomew had glowered. He’d kept his eyes lowered but Joe could sense his whole body shaking as he picked up his keys and left the house. He hadn’t come back – had driven straight home in that car of Leonard’s. And then they hadn’t spoken for weeks, though Joe had called saying, ‘Come on son, don’t be offended’ into Bartholomew’s answer machine. Ann had been livid with him. ‘You and your big flaming mouth,’ she’d shouted. ‘You don’t even know what he does down there. It’s beautiful and you won’t even go and see it.’

And then Bartholomew had called. Joe had felt so relieved, just to hear his voice, it was like a month of heartburn had disappeared with that call. ‘Ruby said I should call,’ Bartholomew said, reluctant. Cold. And still, even after all that, Joe felt he had to get his message through – that Bartholomew and Max, they were everything, every bit of potential that existed. Unspoiled. That’s what Joe had felt when his boys were little. With their smooth skin and red lips and perfect bodies and no possibility closed to them. Then they grew up to be ordinary. Hairy and fat about the middle and limited, like everyone was. But Joe, he can’t accept it. It was only human, wasn’t it, to expect some progress? To expect them to do more than you did? He can’t resist the urge to drive them on, like his dogs harrying the sheep to push them up onto higher ground.

He sees a shiny black VW Golf park in front of his garden gate and hurries to the doorway, watching Bartholomew get out. Is that really my little boy? A man, wearing a bright-red padded jacket which makes him look as if he’s been inflated with a bicycle pump. A five o’clock shadow. A face beaten by the weather. But still a fine head of curls.

‘Ann!’ Joe shouts down the hallway as Bartholomew opens the front gate. ‘He’s here!’

Bartholomew can see Joe open the front door and lean his body on the door frame, hands in the pockets of his trousers, waiting for him. The greyness of his father’s hair is a surprise to him, though it’s not new. Silvery straight and thin it is. His face is oval and ruddy. The roundness of it makes him appear fatter than he is, when in fact he is whippet-thin. Bartholomew has the same roundness in his face, though he’s taller, like Ann’s brother. He is taken with an urgent burst of love for his father, all fresh to him after six months’ absence. He sees Joe shout something down the hallway.

Bartholomew looks up at the house as he walks up the snowy front path. The daylight has been all but sucked away and the snow glows blue in the dusk, making the atmosphere moon-like. He can see a camera pointing out from the farmhouse façade like some alien probe.

‘What on earth is that?’ he says.

‘That, my boy, is our new video entryphone,’ says Joe, ushering Bartholomew into the house, one hand on his shoulder. He is beaming. ‘Come on, I’ll show you. You can see the whole village on the little monitor on the upstairs landing.’

‘Surely you can see the whole village if you look out of the window,’ says Bartholomew.

‘You’ve got a point son, you’ve got a point.’

They smile at each other.

‘Have you seen the video entryphone?’ says his mother, waddling down the hallway and receiving his kiss while wiping her hands on a tea towel. The smell of cooking – her homemade sausage rolls, always served with mashed potato and Branston pickle for Christmas Eve tea – drifts down to them from the kitchen’s open door.

‘I have. Very high-tech.’

‘Very pointless more like. Your father’s becoming obsessed.’

‘I am not. I’m just keeping up with modern technology.’

‘Is that your bag?’ says Ann. ‘Set it down there for now. Looks heavy – full of expensive gifts is it?’

‘Actually, I thought I’d make you something, mum,’ he says, putting his arm around her and giving her a squeeze. ‘Out of toilet rolls.’ She is like a Weeble toy and the jingle from his childhood pops into his head. ‘Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.’

‘That won’t wash now you’re in your thirties,’ she says. They clatter down to the kitchen together. ‘I want material evidence of love,’ she says as she walks ahead of him. ‘Or summat from Coopers.’

‘Right you are.’

In the kitchen, Joe stands over the hotplate of the big green Rayburn, where a kettle is coming to the boil. Ann has her whole body in the larder, so that only her ample bottom is visible.

‘Fruit cake alright, Bartholomew?’ comes her muffled voice from inside the cupboard.

‘Lovely.’

Joe has one hand on the kettle’s horizontal handle, which is wrapped in a coarse oatmeal cloth. The cloth, it seems, has always been wrapped around the handle and has taken on its shape. The cloth never moves. Like so many things in the Hartle household, it is so embedded in its role that it has long ceased to be separate from the kettle. It is something Bartholomew used to like about his childhood home – the permanence of things. In the same way, the dogs’ baskets have always had their position next to the Rayburn and are embedded with the dogs’ imprint. When Lily and Robbie stepped in, they always circled two or three times before lying down. They seemed to settle in the same position, their backs moulded into the brown cushions, lightened by a mesh of dog hairs. Of course it isn’t Lily and Robbie these days, but their successors – Tess and another working dog, whose name escapes him.

He watches his father fill two brown mugs with boiling water. Still wearing his green cords, thinks Bartholomew – another thing that carried the imprint of its role in life – and the cardigan Joe puts on every day when he comes in from the field.

‘How’s the garden centre doing?’ asks Joe, dunking the tea bags.

‘Fine. It’s fine. Tons to do, and Leonard’s not much use. There’s new stock to get in – that’s an outlay and a half. But I want it properly ready for the spring season, not like the last couple of years. Money’s tight.’

‘I know that feeling,’ says Joe, walking to the fridge for milk. ‘But it’s coming on alright – you think you’ll make a success of it?’

‘I don’t know. I hope so.’

‘You could always go back to that place – what was it? The Garden Store?’ says Ann. She is gathering plates and cutlery for the table. ‘I’m sure they’d have you back. Didn’t they say you were a good little worker?’

‘They probably would, mum.’ He and Joe roll their eyes at one another. ‘But that’s not really what I want.’

‘Don’t be daft, woman. He’s his own man,’ says Joe. ‘A man o’ business. Wants to be his own boss and good on him.’

‘Well,’ she says, bringing the fruit cake to the table. ‘I just think a steady job and a reliable income and not having to worry about the overheads – it shouldn’t be sniffed at. But pardon me for breathing.’

‘No, you’re right, mum,’ says Bartholomew. ‘There’s a lot to be said for it. But it’s the right time to make my own way. It’s getting through the winter – god it’s hard.’

‘Tell me about it,’ says Joe.

‘You don’t want to end up in our shoes,’ says Ann. ‘Barry Jordan says there’s no getting out. We’d make a loss, selling the flock at current prices.’

‘Arh, we don’t want out,’ says Joe. ‘I wanted to tell ye, Bartholomew, we both did.’ Joe looks to Ann but she has begun busying herself excessively with the cooking. Draining the boiled potatoes over the sink so that plumes of steam rise into the room. ‘Now that Max is having a baby, well, we think it’s time the farm should go over to him.’

Bartholomew feels all the blood drain from his face. ‘What, straight away?’

‘Naaooh,’ says Joe, over-loud. ‘Gradual like. I want to build it up for ’im. So that he’s got a livelihood.’

‘I see. And what about me?’

‘What about you?’ says Ann. ‘You’ve got your garden centre.’

‘No one gave me that. I’m up to my ears in loans.’ Bartholomew wants to walk out, to get the train back to Winstanton.

‘Max needs our help more ’an you do,’ says Joe. ‘He’s not, he’s not so . . .’

‘How’s he going to run a farm then?’

‘Well, hang on a minute,’ says Ann, ‘he’s not incompetent. He works very hard with your dad.’

‘Come on,’ says Joe. ‘You knew this were coming. You never wanted the place. Never wanted to stay.’

His mother and father begin covering up the moment, Joe telling Ann how good the sausage rolls look.

‘Any road,’ says Joe. ‘How is Ruby? Are things alright between you?’

‘I don’t know, dad,’ say Bartholomew. If he tells them things are fine, well wouldn’t it just confirm their view? Bartholomew all set up and doing well for himself. And anyway, things were not fine, they were far from fine. He wants to spill out his theory, about the ‘fit’ not being right and he wants Joe to confirm to him (while gazing into Ann’s eyes) that when you meet the love of your life, everything falls into place. ‘I’m not sure we’re right for each other,’ he says.

He sees Ann and Joe throw a glance at each other.

Bartholomew presses on. ‘She’s a bit keen.’

He is startled to see his mother swing round, her face as sharp as a wasp’s sting. ‘Good god Bartholomew, you’re not that much of a catch.’

‘Ann, calm down,’ Joe says. He is cowering too, Bartholomew notices.

‘Thanks very much, mum.’

‘I’m just saying. It’s not all hearts and flowers, a relationship.’

‘I’m not saying it is. I just think you need to be sure that you’ve found the right person. For it to work.’ He can see he’s not winning himself any favours, pursuing this course, though he’s unclear why not. The air is too charged for him to think it through.

‘Well,’ says Ann, visibly rearranging her face. She is wiping her hands on a tea towel which she then folds with considerable force. ‘It’s none of my business.’ And she leaves the room.

Joe and Bartholomew sit at the table together.

‘When are you seeing your brother?’

‘Tonight. We’re going for our traditional Christmas Eve pint at the Fox.’

Max and Bartholomew’s boots crunch in the fresh powder. Beyond the pool of light cast by the pub, the village is virtually black. Like falling off the edge of the earth, thinks Bartholomew.

Max pushes open the Fox’s outer door. ‘After you,’ he says, and Bartholomew steps inside, where it is warm and dark. Its sounds – the fruit machine, the fire, the music from the jukebox – so familiar to him.

‘The Hartle boys!’ says Tony Crowther. ‘Welcome home, Bartholomew. What can I getchya?’

‘I’ll have a pint of Marston Moor. And one for Max. You still drinking Marston, Max?’